a-adb basics

Installing adb

C:\> Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
C:\> iex (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://get.scoop.sh')
C:\> scoop bucket add extras
C:\> scoop install adb

On Windows, the resulting platform tools including adb.exe are located at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools.

PS C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools> ls
 
 
    Directory: C:\Users\Owner\AppData\Local\Android\Sdk\platform-tools
 
 
Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM        5857056 adb.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         108320 AdbWinApi.dll
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM          73504 AdbWinUsbApi.dll
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         439072 etc1tool.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM        1807136 fastboot.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM          54560 hprof-conv.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         242128 libwinpthread-1.dll
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         477472 make_f2fs.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         477472 make_f2fs_casefold.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM           1157 mke2fs.conf
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM         754464 mke2fs.exe
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM        1110529 NOTICE.txt
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM          18404 package.xml
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM             38 source.properties
-a----         5/17/2024  12:24 PM        2838304 sqlite3.exe```

To add adb to PATH environment variable, check out the following from this article:

Using adb

To start the adb server: adb start-server

The following adb command executes the whoami command inside the emulated device and prints the result to the terminal.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> adb shell whoami
shell

We can now start executing Linux commands inside the emulator.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> adb shell
emu64xa:/ $ ls
adb_keys        cache        debug_ramdisk    linkerconfig  oem          second_stage_resources  system_ext
apex            config       dev              metadata      postinstall  storage                 tmp
bin             d            etc              mnt           proc         sys                     vendor
bootstrap-apex  data         init             odm           product      system                  vendor_dlkm
bugreports      data_mirror  init.environ.rc  odm_dlkm      sdcard       system_dlkm

Installing Apps and Transferring Files

To install apks: adb install myapp.apk

To push files from the host to the device, we can execute the following command.

PS C:\Users\secsh\Downloads> adb push .\test.txt /sdcard/Download
.\test.txt: 1 file pushed, 0 skipped. 0.0 MB/s (16 bytes in 0.001s)
PS C:\Users\secsh\Downloads> adb shell ls -l /sdcard/Download/
total 8
-rw-rw---- 1 u0_a214 media_rw 16 2026-02-07 13:14 test.txt

Similarly, we pull files from the device to the host by executing the following command: adb pull /sdcard/Download/myapp.apk ..

Interactions

To list all the applications installed:

emu64xa:/ # pm list packages
package:com.android.companiondevicemanager.auto_generated_characteristics_rro
package:com.android.systemui.auto_generated_rro_vendor__
package:com.google.android.providers.media.module

or

emu64xa:/ # ls -l /data/data
total 2056
drwx------  4 system         system         4096 2026-01-29 12:48 android
drwx------  4 u0_a95         u0_a95         4096 2026-01-29 12:48 android.auto_generated_characteristics_rro
drwx------  4 u0_a96         u0_a96         4096 2026-01-29 12:48 android.auto_generated_rro_product__

To look for specific application:

emu64xa:/ # pm list packages | grep hack
package:com.hackthebox.myapp

To find out where the app is installed at:

emu64xa:/ # pm path com.hackthebox.myapp
package:/data/app/~~T4SGxhALvs-sdPMp5uX1nw==/com.hackthebox.myapp-D6UwOMlfwXrxsjvC_nCuOQ==/base.apk

We can pull the app from virtual device and analyze it on our host machine:

C:\Users\secsh\Downloads>mkdir APKFolder
C:\Users\secsh\Downloads>adb pull /data/app/~~T4SGxhALvs-sdPMp5uX1nw==/com.hackthebox.myapp-D6UwOMlfwXrxsjvC_nCuOQ==/base.apk testapp_pulled.apk
/data/app/~~T4SGxhALvs-sdPMp5uX1nw==/com.hackthebox.myapp-D6UwOMlfwXrxsjvC_n...OQ==/base.apk: 1 file pulled, 0 skipped. 50.1 MB/s (4969680 bytes in 0.095s)

Loading the pulled app through jadx, we are ready for static analysis:

Using AndroidStudio for Interaction

Using Android Studio for uploading files might be easier to some people: